Although many cyclocross riders in the Eastern United States may know Brodie bicycles, the brand is familiar to the cyclocross courses in Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Their cyclocross mainstay, the Romax, has been built and redesigned for two decades, with their titanium version of the model coming out in 2009.
Our in review model is the aluminum model of the 2015 Brodie Romax, and once we put it together, we realized that the coming season looks to fire away with baby blue and white as one of the more popular combinations, much like another one of our in review bikes, the Kindhuman KÜDÜ.
Brodie, a company started by mountain bike framebuilder Paul Brodie, began back in 1986, and has been growing in models and size ever since. Today we take a look our in review Romax, with some of the details of the frame and build.
The Frame:
Brodie Bikes has dedicated its brand around the tagline, "Real Bikes for Real People," a phrase geared towards consumers who demand their steeds be more than a one-trick pony. A quick glance at the Romax frame offers a case that they are keeping true to their mission.
Brodie not only envisions this bike as a cyclocross race bike, but it can run as a commuter or adventure bike as well. Frame bosses allow for fenders and racks, and the bottle cages are intentionally left low just in case the rider wants to add frame bags for the all-day outings. This serves as a benefit on the unbearably hot race days of September where a rider could opt for a water bottle cage and possibly manage to shoulder the bike with some practice.
The cable stops and guides route derailleurs and brake housing along the bottom of the down tube.
The frame itself is 7005 aluminum with a Kinesis DC37 carbon fork. The 42.5cm chainstays are geared more for the speed of cyclocross than adventure riding, and the low bottom bracket height follows the trend that many brands are taking. According to Brodie, they have managed to fit in Clement 700x40c tires, but they full admit that it produced an extremely tight clearance.
Like their other cyclocross models, the Romax is only available as a disc frame, and is designed for quick release.
The Build:
The Romax comes equipped with a Shimano 105 drivetrain and Shimano Hydraulic RS685 Calipers. For the cockpit and the seatpost, Brodie remains in house with their "Brodie Road" lineup. The full build in the United States comes to an MSRP of $2099 ($2499 in Canada).
With everything installed, including the Alex CXD5 wheels and the Clement LAS tires, the bike tipped our scales at 20.77 pounds. After removing the wheels, the remainder of the build comes to 13.54 pounds.
Be sure to stay tuned for our full review, and use the slider below for more pictures and a full spec list. More info: brodiebikes.com
The frame comes with plenty of bosses for racks, fenders and water bottle cages. © Cyclocross Magazine
